In establishments such as bars, public houses and hotels where alcoholic and other beverages are served, it is commonplace to use Electronic Point Of Sale operating systems (EPOS) to record sales and payments made by customers. A problem with the EPOS systems currently in use, even those making use of touch screen technology, is that inputting sales data into the systems is a very time consuming operation which must be carried out manually by a bar person or other operative following each sale. A further problem is that there are ample opportunities for information about purchases to be entered incorrectly, with the result that the data recorded can be inaccurate, unreliable and incomplete.
There is therefore a need for an automated system to overcome the short falls in the present manually operated postings required by todays EPOS Electronic Point Of Sale operating systems and which makes use of non-manual interventions for downloading sales process
In particular, there is a need for a system which requires all dispensing components to be disabled and locked only to be enabled and unlocked once an authorised person has been given consent; product identification and quantification being automatically dispatched to the till with the users (ID).
In bars, public houses, restaurants, hotels and similar establishments, alcoholic beverages such as whiskey, rum, brandy, gin and the like are typically dispensed in a standard free pour measure or optic which are stand-alone devices for manually dispensing specific volumes of liquids, The standard optic, which has been adopted throughout the licensed trade for dispensing beverages, is operated by a bar person placing a receiving glass under its outlet and manually pushing the operating lever in an upward direction to a stop point that releases the product. Once the product has been dispensed, the bar person removes the upward pressure to the operating lever, thereby allowing it to return to its original refill location.
Whilst the optic has a government seal of approval ensuring the correct volume of beverage is dispensed with each operation of the device, none of the dispensing apparatuses employed in the trade are designed to ensure the cost of each sale is automatically registered into the till. The responsibility for recording each sale is typically reliant on staff fulfilling their duties in an honest and diligent manner and is therefore open to dishonesty (theft) and errors which can lead to substantial losses in revenue for the industry, as well as a lack of knowledge as to true stock levels which in turn may result in expensive frequent audits.
To overcome the aforesaid problems, it would be desirable to create a procedure that would control the operational sequence of dispensing the products and automatically inform the till of the activities undertaken for costing.
My earlier patent application, PCT/GB01/05119 (see in particular page 9 from line 18 through to page 11 line 21), discloses a device that operates an electrically operated locking device connected to the optic and a magnetically operated switch located within a specific position attached to the optic to provide a counting facility both components connected permanently to the optic.
Whilst the system described in my earlier application goes some way towards addressing the problems discussed above, it does nevertheless suffer from a number of further disadvantages and problems. For example, the locking device for the optic described above makes it difficult for the Standard Optic to be subjected to the normal weekly cleaning routine. For a cleaning operation to be undertaken it is necessary to protect the products from the ingress of water requiring additional expense and not necessarily securing a satisfactory conclusion. Furthermore, changes to the function of the optic as described on page 10 lines 29 through too page 11 lines 21 and the magnetic switching device are sought due to the fact that the counting procedure would be inaccurate and insecure.
The magnet being an addition/attachment to a standard Optic leaving the possibility when the optic was changed for cleaning being changed with an optic without a magnet, or the magnet was being unknowingly dislodged during operation or in the cleaning process making the optic the subject of unacceptable failure.
Should the bar person when dispensing the measured product partially released pressure on the operating lever from the top of its travel whilst still dispensing the product, would reduce the magnetic force on the switch disengaging and opening the contacts, then, by pushing the operating lever back to its top position would close the contacts again and dependant on how many times this rocking momentum went on without disturbing the flow of the product would determine how many additional beverages had been registered as dispensed.
A further failing with the operating procedure of the optic was, should the data carrier “I” button be removed from the electronic device (As stated in Line 19 Page 10) retainer prior to the optic completing its dispensing operation, the locking device would immediately be de-energised releasing the locking pins.
If this was prior to the operating lever reaching its closed position of rest the pins were released into an incorrect location disabling the operation of the optic and the electrically locking device resulting in repair or replacement being undertaken.
Restricting the operation of the optic too precise procedures could not be enforced and the unnecessary costly replacement of a modified optic due to the failure of either the optic or the attachments is unsustainable
Whilst the invention has offered partial restriction on the unauthorised dispensing of product when operating in the correct mode, it failed to prevent the optic being removed from its normal clamp up righting the bottle and removing it from the optic taking quantities of the product direct from the bottle and replacing the bottle and optic to its clamp was not prevented
The next item that requires consideration is the feature regarding beer monitoring it has been found that beer flow being monitored through the use of flow meters only when subjected to varying Beer viscosity, temperature, pressure, and fobbing become unstable. With no further means of calculation the system has been found wanting in accuracy To Measuring beverage dispensed at the dispenser will only provide details of the volumes dispensed under controlled environment and do not take into account the interaction between stock movements outside this environment for example stock delivery accuracy and stock removed from store rooms can all have an adverse account on the true picture.
To overcome this disadvantage all delivery and removal of stock need close electronic supervision and is covered in our invention.
Finally it is apparent that if a shelf connected to weighing devices located within a cabinet is loaded with different items with varying weights it was found that by adopting the principle of discriminating between brands using only the weight of the product for identification it was unable to complete the task correctly for example taking two bottles of beer each containing 360 ml each weighing 190 mg giving a total of 380 mgs it could not distinguish between the brand as the difference in weight was insufficient and their weight was never consistent using only the weigh caused further confusion as when then combined weight of two bottles with a total weight of 380 mgs could not distinguish whether this was 6, 4 or 3 bottles of another weight and could therefore using this principle limited the shelf to only have the same branded goods having the same weighted containers to work correctly